Welcome to this month’s The Brief, where we join the celebrations for Singapore’s 60th birthday.
More than just a milestone, this anniversary is a reminder that Singapore wasn’t simply built over the past six decades – it was carefully designed. From smart cities to seamless services, our feature this month explores how design has shaped the nation’s transformation, and why it remains just as vital for the future.
By Jonathan Bonsey (Chief Executive & Creative Officer)
As Singapore marks its 60th year of independence, we celebrate a journey not just of nation-building – but of nation-designing.
Inspired by DesignSingapore Council’s stirring celebration of the role of design as an essential ingredient in nation building, I’ve given some thought as to how that actually works.
What began as a colonial outpost dependent on commodity trading has been consciously and carefully transformed into one of the world’s most admired centres for high-value services, advanced technology, and human capital development. This transformation did not happen by chance. It was designed — with purpose, precision, and vision.
Design in Singapore has never been confined to form or aesthetics. It has been about systems, structures, and strategies. Urban planning, for example, was among the nation’s first and most crucial acts of design. Faced with land scarcity, population pressures, and limited resources, Singapore pioneered a model of integrated, high-density urban living that has become a global benchmark. From the HDB estates that foster community living to the master-planned business parks, green corridors and vertical gardens – every inch of the city reflects intentional, intelligent design.
The same principles have underpinned Singapore’s economic evolution. Design has been the key to moving up the value chain — from labour-intensive manufacturing to knowledge-driven services, from port logistics to digital innovation. Service design, policy design, and user-centric digital platforms like Singpass and MySkillsFuture exemplify how Singapore has used design thinking to streamline access, build trust, and empower citizens and businesses alike.
Design has also played a vital role in shaping national identity. The clarity of the SG brand, the efficiency of its signage and transport systems, the understated elegance of Changi Airport, and the blend of heritage and innovation in our architecture all reflect a Singapore that is both functional and aspirational. Even in diplomacy and regional leadership, Singapore’s reputation for clarity, consistency, and calm is the result of a well-designed approach to governance and communication.
A great example of how Singapore gets design right is its approach to parking. For decades, motorists wrestled with paper parking coupons – uniquely Singaporean, fiendishly fiddly system. Drivers had to estimate their parking time in 5-minute blocks, punch out the correct date and time on different coupon denominations, and spread them across their dashboard like drying laundry for wardens to inspect. Wasteful, frustrating, and error-prone – it was just the way things were.
Then came the power of GPS, big data, and near-universal smartphone use. GovTech stepped in with a brilliantly designed smart parking app. No more stacks of paper, no more littered coupons, no more racing out of meetings to top up the dashboard. The app does it all -alerting users before time runs out, allowing them to extend with a tap, and even refunding any unused time automatically.
It’s a perfect example of human-centred design and smart technology meeting a real citizen need.
At 60, Singapore is not only a thriving financial and technology hub, but also a centre of design excellence – not just in product and place, but in purpose. The story of Singapore is living proof that design, when embraced at a national level, becomes a force for resilience, reinvention, and relevance.
As we celebrate this milestone, we honour the generations of designers, planners, policymakers, architects, engineers, educators and creatives who have shaped Singapore’s path. And we look forward to the next chapter — one where design continues to unite imagination with execution, and transforms challenges into opportunities.
Happy 60th birthday, Singapore. Your greatest design is the future you are still creating.
